Thread by @ClaireBerlinski

I understand that this has not been a slow news week. It makes sense that this story hasn't received the attention it deserves.

But man, does it deserve attention.

https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman/status/1058378200219172864

One of the hundreds of speculative pieces published in the past few days about how white suburban moms might vote should have been tossed off the front page for this. This is extraordinary reporting. It has already, if true, had massive consequences.

If confirmed, heads must roll. If this happened, as they write, despite clear warnings, people need to lose their jobs from top to bottom.

But they won't.

Years ago, after 9/11, I reviewed a book by historian Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones called “Cloak and Dollar.”

You can read my review here: It's the second half of the review: berlinski.com/2016/09/12/why… It's an excellent book, and does a good job of explaining why there's never accountability for disasters like this.

If @zachsdorfman and @JennaMC_Laugh have this right (we can't know, it's possible someone's yanking their chain for reasons of their own) the HPSCI and SISCI *can* and *must* figure out how this happened, and we need to pressure them to do so, because otherwise--

--all evidence suggests that they won't. This will somehow result in a budget increase for the very people whose incompetence caused four years of "crippling intelligence failures" and damage so serious, "even catastrophic," that it will "persist for years."

“We’re still dealing with the fallout,” said one former national security official. “Dozens of people around the world were killed because of this.” And you can be sure they weren't killed mercifully or quickly. Their families may well have been tortured and killed, too:

just to emphasize the point. "[We] were flabbergasted that Iran managed to extirpate an entire CIA spy network using a technique that one official described as rudimentary—something found in basic how-to books."

Everyone responsible for that should be jobless, to say the least. The weakness was identified in In 2008 by a defense contractor who warned of the possibility of a “massive intelligence failure” having to do with “communications."

"by November 2011, Reidy was fired because of what his superiors said were conflicts of interest, as Reidy maintained his own side business. Reidy believed the real reason was retaliation." That certainly seems plausible, given this filing:

media.mcclatchydc.com/static/graphic…
"I personally crafted several cables detailing the threat we discovered. I provided at least 25 recommendations that we had to impose immediately to mitigate a total collapse of our [redacted] intelligence collection efforts. ...

"While we were on high alert, [redacted] refused too acknowledge there was a problem due in part to their documented Incorrect evaluation of events. They did not want to admit the obvious because it was their funding, their platforms, their officers ...

"and their unwillingness to change course that lead to future compromises. Just after my recommendations were released, operational authority switched. Now [redacted] had final say In all matters and we were reduced to the advisory role. ...

"The [redacted] did not Implement a single recommendation suggested. They buried their collective heads In the sand. The Individuals most responsible for the cover-up were government employees [government employee 1), [government employee 2) and {government employee 3). ...

"Three months later, I was informed by SAIC that they would not be renewing my subcontract ... Ultimately, the Intelligence failures that ensued are evidence why contractors should not be removed as retaliation."

"Meanwhile throughout 2010, I started to hear about catastrophic intelligence failures in the ...office I formally worked for. More than one government employee reached out to me and notified me that the "nightmare scenario" I had described and tried to prevent had transpired ...

"I was told that in upwards of 70% of our operations had been compromised." ...

This is not the kind of story that should be buried. If it's correct, and it's consistent with other stories, many people died. US national security was *severely* compromised. The mistake was worse than amateurish, and they shot the messenger instead of dealing with it.

The oversight committees failed to take it seriously, and they will never take it--or any other catastrophic intelligence failure--seriously unless they believe they themselves could lose their jobs for failing to take it seriously. Something much worse than "losing their jobs"--

could result from failures like this, but for reasons I don't fully understand, Washington is the most intensely parochial city in the world: After working there long enough to get onto these committees, people genuinely forget (if ever they knew) that these are *real* people--

in *real* countries, which have *real* nuclear weapons, a *real* desire to gravely harm or destroy the United States, and they're not amateurs: They're *real* competition. And people trusted us with their *real* lives--

--and it seems, if this report is correct, that in doing so, they made a massive mistake. They paid for that mistake with their lives.

So unless this story is a complete fabrication from a disgruntled employee, or a deliberate misdirection for reasons known only to the IC,

It deserves a sojourn on the front page, and some serious agitation from We the People. Because otherwise--see Cloak and Dollar--the people responsible for this are going to manage, somehow, to get a raise and a promotion out of it. amazon.com/Cloak-Dollar-H…
Really, they shouldn't.

Oh, I forgot: Anna @patreon told me I can't mention Patreon too often. patreon.com/ClaireBerlinski. Your patronage allows me to sit on the sofa, slack-jawed, reading stories like this and thinking, "We'll never make it through the decade, so why are you looking for patrons again?"

But actually, that's not how I usually use my time. So please help me do something small but useful to make this world a more pleasing place.

I'm cultivating my own garden, and if you'd like to enjoy the garden with me, please do come along: patreon.com/ClaireBerlinski.